Human identity and human nature
Chapter Two
A strange bridge: connecting the image and the idol
Idolatry. . . is no game of ideas, no conceptual matter, but a question of power: not whose it is, but to which one submits.
Getting started on the wrong foot: creation and image
At the heart of the opening chapters of Genesis lies the claim that God is the Creator of all that is. He creates by speaking all that exists into being. There are no signs of warfare in the background nor do there appear to be any conflicts into which God enters and that are resolved by divine creation. God is not one among many creators, nor is he acting on behalf of other gods when he creates. His sovereign act of speaking creation into existence separates him from all that is created. He alone is the uncreated one. All else is dependent upon God. Divine speaking frames the originating divine activity of creation as a purposeful event. This significance is nothing less than the reflection of God’s character in creation. In this regard creation is invested with the ‘echo’ of God’s glory.
From the vantage point of the creation everything that exists beside God is dependent upon him for its significance. This is the remarkable conviction of the prologue to the entirety of the canon. God has chosen to be reflected in creation and thereby granted to everything meaning and value, the pinnacle of which is his reflection in humans. Whatever else the imago Dei might mean, there can be little doubt that it stands as paradigmatic of all creation in its calling to reflect or mirror God. It is an exhilarating and exalting description, intended to signify the privilege of imaging God. It is also a humbling description, reminding humankind that it is not divine, but merely an image of the Creator.
It is a common conviction in contemporary theories of religious language that the human authors of Scripture endlessly search for apt metaphors for God from their own world of experience. While this is undoubtedly true at some level, it masks an underlying premise that ought to be resisted. That premise is simply that human experience lacks essential categories of analogy and so analogies must be created by human authors as they search for ways to speak about God. The church’s conviction across the ages, however, has been that God has put the categories of analogy into creation as the means of understanding him. He creates the contexts that are reflective of his character and aims. The canonical authors are persuaded that marriage, for example, is an apt metaphor for divine fidelity because marriage is ordained by God for this very purpose.
A wider biblical-theological argument would point at the divinely ordained categories of understanding emerging from the ‘reflective’ nature of human identity. God so constitutes human beings with the purpose of reflecting him in the created order that it is essential to their identity that this reflection ‘fill the earth’ (Gen. 1:28). The categories of their understanding of their Creator grow naturally from the reflective nature of their identity and the reflective nature of their reflection in the rest of the created order.
In the history of theological discussion the nature of the imago Dei has in large measure been parsed in metaphysical or moral ways, namely in terms of human faculties of rationality, spirituality or morality as the essential elements of human identity created in God’s image. More generically, the opening chapters of Genesis have been thought to assert a complex cosmological system with attendant ontological implications about existence and causal contingency. Everything that has existence is caused to exist by God. But how exactly are humans distinct from everything else that is created? Do humans have a different kind of existence or a different set of capacities? The faculties of mind, will and spirit were put into this nexus of cosmology and creation by theologians across the centuries. Theological debates about human identity often revolved around which of these faculties were essential to humans as distinct from the rest of the created order. The metaphysics of these human faculties were of central theological importance in the patristic debates about sin and salvation as well.
The focus on human faculties that distinguished humankind from the animals and reflected the divine being led to cosmological musings during the Middle Ages that pertained abstractly to the causal relation between God and creation more generally. What was the nature of causal dependence? What was the difference between God’s necessary existence and creation’s contingent existence? What was the difference between God’s knowledge and human knowledge if he did not have a body and was therefore not causally dependent upon the senses for ‘information’? In each of these queries was the struggle to find a larger theoretical framework to understand Creator and creation. These debates were (and are) important, but often obscured the original intent of the ‘doctrine’ of creation in the early chapters of Genesis. A wide literature has emerged offering sophisticated accounts of scientific cosmology that are sympathetic to a religious understanding of human nature, and that have not sought to pit the Bible against science, nor to prove the Bible from science. This has helped to distinguish two tasks, which nonetheless have some overlap: the exegetical and the cosmological. Metaphysics is not the primary concern of the Genesis account, though undoubtedly ontological consequences are manifest in Genesis, into which theologians and philosophers have justifiably enquired. But if Genesis 1 is a text connected to Israel’s existence, then the account ought not to be seen as primarily an abstract affirmation of creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing) but ‘rather the emergence of a stable community in a benevolent and life-sustaining order’.
Human identity and human nature
It is important to distinguish the questions of human identity and of human nature. Questions of identity have to do with meaning. What is the meaning of human life? Wherein do our securities and insecurities lie? What are appropriate goals towards which human striving is aimed? What is the meaning of human flourishing? The questions of human nature have to do with a description of human faculties and capacities. What is the relationship of the human body to the human person? What is the most adequate metaphysical description of personhood? How does human biology relate to human psychology?
Undoubtedly there is overlap in these two diverse clusters of questions. However, realizing that they are different sorts of questions will enable us to know what sorts of evidence might count towards answering the different questions. Understanding our human DNA is part of the story about how humans are related to the animal kingdom. But DNA does not necessarily answer questions about the meaning of life. By contrast, saying something about justice and mercy would not necessarily answer questions about mind–body issues.
The issues of the canon are predominantly questions of human identity rather than of human nature. There are restraints in the canon for any full-blown theory of human nature, but the description of human capacities in metaphysically and scientifically appropriate ways is not the animating concern of Scripture. The Scriptures are permeated throughout by the questions of meaning.
Too often theological treatments of the imago Dei have oriented themselves towards accounts of human nature and less towards human identity. Theologians have every right to be interested in questions of human nature, but the unfortunate consequence is that they have therefore made the construct of the imago Dei bear more conceptual weight than it was intended to bear. The context of the primary occurrences of the imago Dei in Genesis 1 – 9 strongly argues against construing the imago Dei as a grand metaphysical construct. If anything, the context demands a certain theological humility regarding this.
The ‘image’ language in Genesis 1 – 9 occurs in the contexts of a longer covenantal argument about Israel’s relationship to YHWH as Creator, and thus an account of the imago Dei should not be turned into a generic account of natural human attributes. In the context of the covenantal argument the central concern was the meaning of Israel’s existence and their security from the threats surrounding them as well as those within their own midst. These are the matters of human identity, not in an abstract sense but in the concrete relationship to YHWH. What does it mean to find security and significance in YHWH? What are the dangers to that security and significance?
These questions provide the clue that the language of imago Dei underwrites a positive construal of meaning and a warning to the dangers and threats to that security and significance. In the canon the closest conceptual counterpart to the imago Dei are graven images. Idolatry provides the wider canonical context for the imago Dei as that which most centrally threatens the security and significance of the covenantal relationship between Creator and creature, between Redeemer and redeemed, between Christ and his people. Paradoxically, the idol-maker is the theological opposite of the image bearer. But it is true both exegetically and theologically that bearing the image of God and crafting graven images are two sides of the same conceptual coin. The Creator has made human creatures whose identity enables them to move seamlessly from worshipping the living God to bowing before other gods.
Human identity is illuminated in the covenantal relationship of bearing the image of God, and is corrupted by exchanging him for graven images. The one made in the image of God ‘exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling humans and birds and animals’ (Rom. 1:23). This ‘exchange’ highlights the remarkable similarity and absolute difference of imaging God and imaging the idols. The actions are virtually the same but the objects that receive the action are fundamentally different. The root metaphor for Israel’s relationship to God and to the idols is that of marital relationships. As husband and wife are forbidden to have sexual relations with any other partner, so Israel is forbidden from worshipping any but their true Bridegroom.
Listening to the canon will aid us in refraining from constructing elaborate theological or philosophical anthropologies out of the imago Dei. It will also likewise remind us how dangerous is the subversion and perversion wreaked upon us by our own graven images. The task before us is much more limited than theologians have traditionally supposed, but the result is much more important.
Finding security in YHWH is rooted in the covenantal claim that he is the Creator of Israel (and of the whole created order), whose identity is grounded in a peculiar relationship to him. That peculiar relationship arises because humans represent YHWH in a way that nothing else in the created order represents him. The promises of YHWH’s presence among his people underscores this peculiar relationship. He is everywhere present in creation, but is uniquely present in his covenantal relationships. He is redemptively present in the exodus event. He is present in judgment during the periods of exile. He is present in ways that bring forgiveness in the Holy of Holies in the temple. The narrative of that divine presence corresponds to the persistent narrative of dangers that threaten Israel’s well-being in the world.
This narrative of redemptive history is conceptually rich, but we should be careful to discern the nature of the constructs used. The primary constructs in this study are imago Dei and ‘idolatry’. Construed as constructs inside a narrative, they point generally at some kind of representation. The image represents or reflects that of which it is an image. The idol represents the gods to which it points. Representation is itself not always straightforward. Ambassadors are representatives of their governments. Flags represent a country’s identity. A painted portrait represents the person of which the painting is made. Some forms of representation are natural; others are a result of mere conventions. Some evoke a powerful emotional response, as when a memento of a dead person kindles strong memories of that person. Other forms of representation go virtually unnoticed because of sheer repetition, as when words refer to objects. Reading the marks (letters) on a page often produces an unconscious formation of a mental image of an object. Our minds can move to the consideration of the object without noticing the convention of representation inherent in the written word.
It is the biblical narratives that determine the kinds of representation packed into the concepts of ‘image’ and ‘idol’; and it is important to note at this point that both constructs involve some kind of representation. Clearly the imago Dei connotes a positive and ‘idolatry’ a negative representation. The opposition to idolatry throughout the canon does not suppose that representation of every sort is negative, but simply that the unique kind of representation in idolatry is aberrant.
When Michelangelo painted God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, no one supposed that God was there. The image was different from that which it represented. But there were nonetheless theological critics of Michelangelo’s project because it mistakenly supposed that God had material representations. The critics argued that God could not be pictured as if he were a creature. As a Jewish commentator notes of the critics, ‘the material representation of God would lead to the conception that he is a material being’.
However, the canon does occasionally suppose that God has a material image (Num. 12:8; Ezek. 1:26; 8:3). Isaiah speaks of seeing ‘the Lord sitting upon a throne’ (Isa. 6:1). Ezekiel writes of the appearance of God in human form on the throne. YHWH is recorded as saying to Moses, ‘you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live’ (Exod. 33:20). God is said to have a ‘right hand’, ‘ears to hear’ and ‘feet’ to walk. Each of these in turn points to the unexpected conclusion that God communicates that those human forms may appropriately be ascribed to him. Undoubtedly these do not imply straightforwardly that God has a body, and must be viewed as consistent with the common claim in the canon that he cannot be seen or touched, because he is not a material being. The Creator is not to be confused with the creation. However, the chasm between Creator and creature is not so great that God cannot bridge it. God ‘enters’ into the story of creation in a host of unexpected ways – speaking, acting and making his presence manifest, all within the confines of the created order. Any account of the relationship of the Creator and the creature that makes the chasm either too great or too small does an injustice to the mysteries and tensions of the canon.
Part of the reality of the chasm has to do with the nature and direction of worship and desire. A mistaken conception of God as a material being is but a small part of the negative connotations of idolatry. Believing something false about God is dangerous, but not nearly as dangerous as worshipping something other than him. ‘The boundary between idol worshippers and monotheists is not the metaphysical picture of the world, but the method of relating to it, the method of worship.’ False representations pull the creature away from the Creator. They exert an influence over the creature in unforeseen ways. They tug at the human heart and distract it.
The image gains its ontological weight from what it represents. It is ontologically ‘thin’ in this sense, derived from the original. Without an original there is no image. It is not conversely true, however, to say that without an image there is no original. In canonical contexts the image is a thin or thick reality dependent upon the object of its desire. If its object of desire is the living God, then it is filled with life. If there is only one true and living God, there is nowhere else to find life, and so if the object of greatest desire is anything else save YHWH, there is a corresponding thinning out of the image. The idol is doubly ‘thin’ in this respect, since it depends upon the gods it represents who themselves have no life. The constructs of idol and image overlap and both are conceptually codependent upon the nature of God. The idol and the image both take their clue for meaning from outside themselves, either in reverence or in rebellion to the only true and living God.
The story of the image and the idol is not one of bare existence. It is not simply whether the image can exist independently of the original or whether there is a metaphysical description of image as a human person. The story is about the meaning of life rather than the metaphysics of life. The image finds its flourishing in its relationship to the original. Creatures find their satisfaction in the God who made them. The idol represents both a false fulfilment and a perversion or corruption of the creature. The canon goes to great lengths to narrate the tug in human hearts between the living God and the idols who pull them away from the living God. Idols are dangerous in the same way that outside love interests are dangerous to a marriage. Adulterous liaisons inevitably pull the marriage apart at the seams. As with adultery, so idolatry is about both wrong beliefs (e.g. a belief about where satisfaction can be found) but more importantly corrupted desires (e.g. the desire to get gratification on whatever terms are necessary). All idolatry involves error in belief to some extent, if the belief in question is that some creature has a worth enjoyed only by the Creator. If there is only one God, there is only one object worthy of worship and adoration. Monotheism and monolatry go hand in hand. The worship of one God (monolatry) is a necessary consequence of the belief that only one God exists (monotheism).
It is appropriate to use the language of addiction in reference to idolatries. The idol becomes a nasty taskmaster whose power seems almost limitless to the idolater, comparable to the way an addict is enslaved to alcohol or drugs or sex or shopping. The addict experiences powerlessness in the face of the addiction. Addictions are complex, progressive and often disabling. But addictions are entered into voluntarily and often without much forethought. They do not begin with raging compulsion. But somehow mysteriously desire turns into compulsion and addicts lose a sense of their former identity. What drives the addiction is a longing for satisfaction. This desire for fulfilment runs deep in the human heart. Satisfaction, however, is not to be had simply anywhere or with anyone. It is part of the hardwiring of the human heart that satisfaction will be found in that which is finally good and true and beautiful, namely God. The error of idolatry was in the longing for gods that ‘are no gods’ (Jer. 2:11).
Idols are not the sorts of things one ordinarily considers in the abstract, whether it is reasonable to believe in them or not. Looking for good reasons to believe in idols is a category mistake. We are attracted to idols not on rational grounds but rather as means to gratify desires. We believe in idols because we want to, even as an alcoholic is attracted to alcohol because he wants it. There is rational consideration only in the very vaguest of senses.
Idolatry ironically became a powerful tool in the hands of secular thinkers over the last two centuries. It sustained an enduring critique that religion itself is mistaken because it concerns matters of the heart rather than of belief systems. As I will argue later, the secular Enlightenment of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries exploited this characteristic of idolatry to claim that religion itself was not rational. Since God is beyond any evidence, Feuerbach and Nietzsche both assumed that the whole of the religious project must be a form of idolatry – of creating a god to suit one’s own interests. Marx replaced the true and living God with the essence of humanity in his natural state of labour. On this scheme money was the worship of an alien god at the expense of man’s true nature. Discovering the motives for religious belief then became the mode of argument to uncover the religious illusion. Uncovering those motives proved a powerful alternative to the project of having to prove that God did not exist. If it could be shown that religious belief arose because of psychological need or economic oppression, then religious belief could be swept away much more quickly and efficiently.
The fundamental flaw in this line of reasoning is by now well rehearsed. If all claims about God, including the claim that he does not exist, derive from ulterior motives, then atheism is susceptible to the critique of ulterior motives as well. This critique itself, though, is instructive when viewed in the light of the canon. In the canon it is not those outside Israel whose sins are particularly exposed by the framework of idolatry. Rather it is Israel themselves, those who are peculiarly religious, who are prone to a thick and destructive idolatry. When Christians recognize this propensity in themselves, it leverages the power of the gospel against the power of idols. It also creates an inbuilt tendency not to believe too strongly in oneself. In fact it teaches us to distrust our natural tendency to demonize others and downplay the seriousness of our own idols.
Taking one’s idols more seriously requires understanding how meaning is created and human identity is constituted. It requires more than mere suspicion of motives. Idolatry is unmasked not by a sheer unmitigated self-criticism. Idolatry requires a light that illuminates its true character. Throughout the canon that ‘light’ is none other than the true and living God. This is the reason why we must resist those traditions that supposed God was beyond all comprehension, and thus that all theology must be merely negative. If there is no positive task for the knowledge of God to perform and therefore no genuine knowledge of him, then one’s best hope is the muting of idols rather than their replacement. But the canon strongly argues that the only defence against idolatry is God himself. There must be a window through which he can be known, in order that a light may shine back upon the idols, unmasking them for what they are. It is only in comparison to the one true living God that the idols are manifested as mere pretenders.
The notion of a light shining or reflecting the identity of God into and against the idols is the function of the imago Dei rightly considered. The identity of God illuminates the identity of the imago Dei, which in turn illuminates the true identity of the idols. Put differently, images will reflect. The key question of the Scriptures is, what will images reflect? Will the image of God (humankind) image God? It seems a simple question. Will the image of God find his or her identity in the reflection of God?
Image bearers are not intrinsically idolatrous though they are doxologically fragile. The imago Dei of Genesis 1:27 is the striking counterexample to the universal ban on images in worship. This ‘image’ is not an object of corrupted desires, yet the image bearer is strikingly prone to chase after graven images. The image bearer finds purpose in worship, quite obviously not as an object of worship but as the one whose significance and security are defined by the reflection and representation of God. Graven images by contrast draw these image bearers away from their doxological relationship to God and thereby virtually replace the Creator with the created. The surprise at the end of the story of the graven images is the appearance of the perfect image. The divine entrance into the very likeness of our humanity in Jesus Christ is the great irony in the narrative arc that runs from the creation of the image to the corruption by the graven images and finally to the revelation of the perfect image. It is the narrative arc of this story of image to idol and back again to image that is told across the rest of this work. By drawing attention to this biblical-theological thread woven across the canon we will more fully appreciate the depth and the richness and the surprise in the manner in which redemption plays out in the great epic of Scripture. To the beginning of the epic we turn in the next chapter.